


when you're at the end of the road

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 04:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle, after clean up, after Shwarma, after sending Loki and Thor back to Asgard, the Avengers Initiative fades back into the background.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you're at the end of the road

**Author's Note:**

> So this was supposed to be short. And angsty. I blame Harri entirely for the end scene. It's all her fault. Just like everything else.  
> Title from 21 Guns by Green day (shut up, Harri)

After the battle, after clean up, after Shwarma, after sending Loki and Thor back to Asgard, the Avengers Initiative fades back into the background. Mostly. Tony and Bruce go back to Stark Towers to rebuild and redesign, Steve goes back to his apartment in Brooklyn, Natasha goes to wherever Natasha goes when she has down time. Clint’s never asked, and she’s never offered.

Clint though. He’s left at SHIELD, debriefed over and over by agents whose names he’s never bothered to learn, because he had Natasha, and he had Coulson, and he didn’t need anyone else. And doesn’t it hurt like a bitch that Coulson’s gone because of him, and Natasha almost went too, only didn’t because she was smarter, stronger, faster, or she’d be in the morgue alongside his handl- his friend.

Finally, after what seems like months, he’s released from his five by five cell back into the city, and because he has nowhere else to go, he stays. He wanders the streets at night, hides in the motel room he’s renting during the day and eats cheap junk food and drinks cheap whiskey and smokes cheap cigarettes. His bow and quiver sit in a case in the corner of the room, but he hasn’t touched it since he put it there six months ago, ignores it in favour of watching the crackly black and white TV, because he can’t kill people with the TV, not without some creative thinking and a little effort, anyway, and so he curls up under the comforter and pretends it’s not there, pretends he doesn’t hear his cellphone buzzing against the wooden table in the corner. He’s been living there for eight months when Natasha breaks the door down and picks him bodily up off the bed, setting him on the floor and rummaging in the duffel bag by his bed to throw clothes at him before making the bed quickly and deftly, folding herself onto it while he pulls a t-shirt and crumpled jeans on. When he’s dressed, he rubs at his hair half-heartedly and watches her, but she says nothing, just gestures to the battered chair in the corner of the room, next to the bed and he sits down heavily, not sure what he’s waiting for, but sure he’s not going to enjoy it. ‘You’re an idiot.’ She says, and it’s harsher than he thought she would be. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

‘Um,’ he says, scrabbling for purchase in the conversation.

‘You’ve had eight months to feel sorry for yourself. Sulking time is over.’ Clint opens his mouth again to protest, but she ignores him and keeps talking. ‘You’re an Avenger, Barton, whether you want to or not, so act like one.’

‘I-‘ Clint gets out a word this time before she stabs him in the chest with a finger.

‘No,’ she says, and Clint’s teeth clack together when he snaps his mouth shut. ‘Eight months, Clint. Your mourning period is over. He’s not coming back.’ For her sake, he pretends he doesn’t hear her voice hitch, just a little bit, on that last sentence. He knows he pales, turns grey and his hands clench, and her face softens, imperceptible, but she’s not the only one who knows more about someone else than they do. ‘We don’t blame you. None of us do.’

He means to say ‘I know’, but instead it comes out as ‘I do’, and she looks at him again.

‘Come back to SHIELD, Clint,’ she says, quiet, and her hand twitches, like she’s going to reach out, except Natasha doesn’t do touching, not like this. He licks his lips, looks down at the floor. There’s a stain half hidden by his bare foot. He wrinkles his nose and folds the foot underneath him, away from the mark. ‘We need you,’ Natasha says, and he almost believes her. He looks back up, and she’s watching him, careful, but there’s something in her eyes, and Clint knows she’s lying, that when she says ‘we’, she means ‘I’, and he suddenly feels like the worst person in the world, because he has a lot of faults, and so does she, but they’ve always been there for each other, ever since that night in Tibet fifteen years ago, when she had an arrow through her shoulder and he had a bullet hole in his gut but the upper hand, and he was standing over her, arrow notched. He could have killed her that night, should have killed her, but instead her brought her home, giving Coulson another handful of grey hairs and giving up his freedom to the psych department and SHIELD’s pet psychics for three days.

She’s still looking at him. He’s looking back, but shifting uneasily in his chair, and when he opens his mouth, the word ‘okay’ falls out, almost by accident. All the tension held in her shoulders melts, and she doesn’t smile, but it’s close, and she nods instead, unfolding herself form the lotus position easily as breathing. She’s out of the door before he can say anything else, leaving a folding sheet of paper on the table by the bed.

He looks at it for three hours before he opens it, but it’s just contact details of his new handler, their new handler he supposes, since the Avengers are designed to work as one unit, and therefore only need one handler. It should have been Phil, he thinks, bitter, but he pulls his SHIELD case towards him, and assembles his bow, pulling the string taut. The arrows are all still there from where he collected them after the battle, wandering the streets of New York in the interest of avoiding the rest of his new team. He knows Stark of course, hard not to when he swaggers through Headquarters like he owns the place, and he’s met Thor briefly. There’s Tasha, who he knows like he knows himself, and Captain America and really, he was raised in a circus, not by wolves, of course he knows Captain America. He knows the Hulk too, has seen the footage when he was first tapped for this, along with Tasha and a half dozen other gifted operatives. None of the rest of them made it more than three months working alongside Iron Man and War Machine, who isn’t an Avenger but might as well be, never far from Stark’s side when he’s in the country. The Hulk is terrifying, feral and green and _dangerous_ , and Clint can’t believe they’re actually trying to recruit him. It takes him a few minutes to connect the Hulk with the short scrawny guy with floppy hair and badly fitting clothes who rides up on a battered scooter, until he drawls in his native New York accent and snarls, turning into the monster from the footage. Clint’s not ashamed to admit that the Hulk scares the crap out of him.

He rolls an arrow between his fingers, almost on autopilot before taking them all out of the case and sorting them, folding his bow back up and lying it back in the case when he’s done, and everything is in the right place before he stands up, pulls a jacket on and puts his case back into the backpack he carries it around in to avoid people making the connection between him and Hawkeye. He jogs down towards the subway station, and his legs burn with the strain. He’s done almost nothing physical in the last eight months, and it shows. Natasha would laugh him out of the sparring ring. He changes his mind, and runs straight past, intending to run all the way to SHIELD, but he gives up just over halfway through, and catches his breath while he waits for the train. He flashes his ID at the counter of HQ, and the girl flashes a smile, like they always do. It’s the first time he hasn’t smiled back. He spends two hours in the range, abandoned like always; he’s the only person in SHIELD that prefers arrows over bullets, and he kind of likes that. He shoots arrow after arrow until he’s hitting the bullseye ten times out of ten, and by then his arm is screaming with cramp and he has to call it a day.

On the way out he passes an office marked McCall, and his mind flashes back to the piece of paper folded into the back pocket of his jeans. He feels like he should knock, introduce himself, but instead he finds himself backing away down the hall, turning and walking straight into the Hulk, or at least the man who turns into the Hulk. Clint’s solidly built, if out of shape, and he probably weighs a good twenty pounds more than Banner, he thinks the guy’s name is, so it’s understandable, if not ideal, that he knocks him flying, unseating his glasses so they’re hanging from one ear. He looks bewildered, like he has no idea what’s just happened, and just blinks at him when Clint babbles apologies and sticks out a hand to help him up. Eventually he takes it, and Clint pulls him to his feet, standing there awkwardly while he readjusts his glasses, pulling them off and folding them before passing them from hand to hand, like a nervous tic. Clint sticks his hand out again, to shake, this time. ‘Clint Barton,’ he says, and the guy’s lips twitch minutely. He’s actually taller than Clint, just by a half inch or so, and Clint’s close enough to see the grey in his hair, the freckles along the bridge of his nose, mostly hidden by the tan that’s settled, bone deep it seems, into his skin. He really is thin though, horrifically underweight, and it doesn’t help that his clothes are worn and faded and at least two sizes too big.

‘I know who you are,’ he says, before taking the hand and shaking. ‘Bruce Banner.’ Then he must feel like the conversation’s lacking, because he adds ‘You’re Agent Romanov’s partner. And an Avenger?’ The last sentence is phrased like a question, and it throws Clint off, because shouldn’t Banner know who’s on his team or not?

‘Uh, I guess so?’ he says, eloquently, and Banner nods, solemnly. They start walking together, Clint pretending he’d been going in this direction all along. ‘What do you think of Stark?’ he asked, and Banner snorts with laughter.

‘I’m glad he’s on our side,’ he says eventually. ‘That guy is one maniacal laugh away from super villainy like we’ve never seen.’ Clint has to agree.

They end up in the cafeteria, Clint drinking shitty coffee, Banner with a cup of something that smells floral, and makes Clint’s eyes water. After sitting for about half an hour, he notices that Banner gets twitchy, starts looking around, drumming his fingers on his thigh, tapping his foot against the leg of the table. ‘Don’t like being in one place for too long?’ Clint asks, quiet, and Banner looks surprised, before nodding. Clint nods back. ‘Yeah, I know how that is.’ He grabs hold of Banner’s arm without thinking, and pulls him out of his chair, leading him out of the cafeteria and down several flights of stairs until they’re out in the city again, and Banner looks considerably less like he wants to run away. Clint grins, and heads off one a random direction, not really paying attention to where he’s going, until they end up in front of what used to be Stark Tower, and now has a giant capital A emblazoned on the side. Banner hovers outside the doors for a few moments, long enough for Clint to stop and turn around to watch him.

‘Agent Romanov told me you were living in a motel,’ he says, eventually, and Clint pauses.

‘What’s your point?’ he retorts, defensive without knowing why, and Banner flinches.

‘Food stereotypically sucks in a motel.’ Banner says, and Clint grins suddenly.

‘Dr Banner, are you offering to cook for me?’ Banner flushes, bright red all over, the blush disappearing down into the collar of his shirt. Clint wonders how far down it goes. Banner mutters something, and turns to vanish into what Clint’s going to start calling Avenger Tower, because at last count, four of the Avengers were living up in the top floors. Not Thor though, back in Asgard, and not Clint. Definitely not Clint. Clint the traitor, Clint the bad guy, Clint who killed countless people, good people. Clint jogs to catch up with him just as he reaches the automatic doors, and puts a hand over his forearm again, wondering what the hell happened to him that made him want to make Banner happy after so short a time.

‘It sounds great,’ he says, meeting Banner’s eyes, soft and brown and uncertain. ‘I’m starving.’

Banner’s face lights up, child-like, and it makes Clint smile too, and he decides not to question, just to enjoy it. It’s been a long time since someone’s smiled at him genuinely, just to smile. The women at the front desk of SHIELD don’t count, they’re just hoping for a phone number, a drink, a quick fuck. Clint’s not interested anymore. But Banner. He’s interested in Banner. He’s interested in this quiet, shy man who laughs at Clint’s jokes and looks uncomfortable in his own skin, and polishes his glasses when he’s trying to think of an answer to a question he didn’t anticipate, and has such a dry wit that it almost goes straight over Clint’s head.

Clint’s sitting on a counter in a kitchen bigger than the motel room he’s been living in while Banner stands at the oven, stirring something that smells spicy and delicious. Goulash, he’d called it, chopping beef into rough chunks and throwing it in a frying pan to hiss and spit. Clint’s drinking beer, Banner water, and he’s telling Clint a story about the woman who taught him this recipe when he was living in Hungary, Anne. She was blind and raising six kids all under the age of seven, none of whom were her own. The people in her village called her Saint Anne, or Mother Theresa, but they all pitched in to help, taking the kids to school or cleaning for her. ‘It’s like a different world, there,’ Banner says, pouring boiling water over the rice and stirring. ‘It’s not like New York, where no one cares about anyone as long as they get to work on time, or they get their morning coffee. It’s amazing.’

Clint nods, taking another pull from his bottle. ‘What does it feel like?’ he asks, suddenly, and then regrets it immediately, when Banner flinches, clattering the spoon against the side of the pan and splashing sauce. ‘Sorr-’ he starts, but Banner waves him off, turning to lean on the counter next to him.

‘It’s a little bit like being unmade and remade, over and over.’

‘Does it hurt?’ Clint’s well aware he should stop asking questions, but he’s drinking on an empty stomach and beer always made him loose-tongued. Natasha used to laugh at him about it. Probably still does, they just haven’t gone out for a drink in over a year.

Banner’s silent, sips at his water. Clint feels guilty, moves to slide down from the counter, but then Banner’s sitting next to him, shoulder leaning against his, bodies touching from hip to knee to ankle. ‘It used to,’ he says, picking at the loose skin around his thumbnail. ‘right at the start. It doesn’t hurt so much anymore.’ Clint chews his lip and nods, peels the label off his bottle and shreds it.

‘Do you remember what you do when you’re…’ Clint trails off, trying to find a phrase a little more tactful than ‘a monster’, but Banner sits up suddenly, swivels to face Clint, and Clint knows, instinctively knows that Banner sees what he’s getting at, sees before Clint does even, because Clint remembers everything, in stunning, horrifying technicolour.

‘Bits and pieces,’ Banner says carefully. ‘but it’s hazy. I don’t remember a lot. Mostly I remember how it feels. How angry he is.’

The pan spits at them, and Banner hops down from the counter and stirs it, poking at the rice in the other pot before opening a cupboard above his head and standing on his tiptoes to reach the plates down from the top shelf. His shirt rides up, and Clint sees that the tan is apparently all over, and there’s a trail of dark hair leading down his stomach to disappear into his holey jeans. Banner clatters the plates on the table, and Clint flinches, looks back up and sees Banner smiling at him, something dancing in his eyes that looks like amusement. It’s Clint’s turn to blush, but Banner just hands him a plate piled high and a fork, and tells him to dig in, eating his own leaning against the opposite counter. It smells amazing, and Clint inhales his in roughly three minutes and piles his plate high again before being reduced to eating out of the pan, shameless. Banner’s laughing at him again. ‘You weren’t kidding then.’ He says mildly, running hot water into the sink and rooting around underneath it before producing a green bottle of washing up liquid.

Clint smiles, lopsided, but hops down and picks up a tea towel standing next to the sink ready to dry. ‘I’ve been living on subway and twinkies for eight months. I was this close to eating you.’

After the washing up, Bruce grabs another beer and refills his water glass and leads Clint through into a giant living area, with a TV wider than his arm spam and sofas everywhere. Bruce –and when exactly did he stop thinking of him as Banner?- collapses onto one end of a couch and curls his feet underneath him. Clint perches on the other end and twists the cap off his beer, sticking the end in his mouth when it fizzes over. Bruce snorts, and Clint glares at him, mumbling ‘shut up’ around the mouth of the bottle. There’s beer foam trickling out from the corner of his mouth, and Clint knows just how attractive that looks, so he pulls off the beer bottle with a pop and rubs the back of his hand over his mouth, setting it on the coffee table in front of him and crossing his legs, sitting lotus style, like Tasha in the hotel room.

‘I remember everything.’ He says it suddenly, and then freezes, because he sure as hell didn’t mean to say that, and what is it with him today, blurting shit like that out. Bruce just nods, and mirrors his position, wedging his water between his hip and the arm of the couch.

‘After I turned into the other guy for the first time, I had nightmares for three months afterwards. I didn’t remember much, but I remembered enough. I remembered the screaming, and I remembered there being no more screaming. I remember ripping something to pieces. I never knew what. They never told me. I remembered the anger, and I remember not being in control.’ Bruce is looking at his bare feet, pushing a thumb against the sole and speaking quietly, even though they’re the only ones in the room.

‘That’s the worst thing. The not being in control.’ Clint says, picking at the frayed hem of his jeans. Bruce nods, and sips at his water. ‘Does it get better?’ Clint asks then, and Bruce looks up.

‘What, the nightmares?’

Clint shrugs. ‘Everything.’

Bruce’s nose twitches, and he shrugs, throwing one shoulder up and down loosely. ‘Some things do. The nightmares go away eventually. You never really get used to everything else.’

Clint considers this. Then he considers what kind of life Bruce must lead, living like this.  ‘Your life sucks,’ he says out loud, and gives up on being embarrassed, because apparently it’s just that kind of day.

Bruce just laughs, and it makes Clint smile too. ‘It has it’s moments,’ he says, before sobering. ‘Why are you talking to me about this?’ Clint doesn’t really have an answer for that, can’t think of anything to say, but Bruce keeps talking, louder than Clint’s thoughts. ‘I mean, you could have gone to any of the others, you know them better, right?’ He’s silent for a moment, looks at Clint, really looks at him and Clint can feel his eyes on the side of his face, keeps staring at his beer, won’t look him in the eye, not right now. ‘Maybe that’s the point.’ Bruce says, quiet and contemplative and so utterly lacking in judgement that Clint swivels and looks back at him, tilting his head. ‘It’s a weakness, isn’t it? Not being in control.’ Clint just blinks, because of course it is, and everything slots into place. He can’t go to Thor, wouldn’t go to Stark or Rogers, they wouldn’t understand, and Natasha would understand too much, and who else is there if not this strange skinny man who cooked him dinner and laid out Clint’s own thoughts in front of him like he’s one of SHIELD’s pet psychics? ‘I know what it’s like watching someone else use your body like it’s theirs, and now so do you. Except there’s one difference between us.’ Bruce looks away, rolls his empty water glass between his hands. Clint leans forward, shifting his weight slightly. ‘It might as well be just a bad dream for you. It’s over. He doesn’t have you anymore. You know that right?’

Clint nods, his mouth dry. ‘In theory, sure.’ One side of his mouth twitches, but he’s not sure if he wants to laugh or grimace. Possibly both. He’s a bit of a mess at the minute, not sure if you’ve noticed. He coughs, trying to make his voice sound less wrecked, and subtly changes the subject. ‘Is there really no cure for…’ he trails off again, making a weird gesture to encompass Bruce before dropping his hands back into his lap.

Bruce shakes his head. ‘Not yet. That’s why I’m here. Tony thinks it’s because of his sunny personality and habit of throwing money at a problem to make it go away. Really it’s because he has some of the best resources in the world, or he knows people who do. I’ve been talking to Reed Richards about building a special kind of laser, one that should target only the other guy’s DNA.’

‘Like chemotherapy?’ Clint hazards a guess. He barely graduated high school, but he’s not a complete idiot.

Bruce smiles again, a different sort of smile to the sympathetic ones earlier; this one is like Clint’s grasped a difficult concept after a long and patient explanation. ‘Almost exactly like that, except instead of targeting cells, we’ll be targeting certain genes, strands of DNA, and then replacing them with synthetic DNA I’ve been engineering in my lab upstairs.’

‘Sounds… complicated,’ Clint says, feeling like he’s back in high school and the teacher’s trying to explain Pythagoras. He’d barely kept up then.

‘One way of putting it, I guess,’ Bruce sounds amused, and Clint figures they’re in fairly safe territory now, so he finishes his almost untouched beer and tosses it in the bin a few feet away. Bruce tuts and retrieves it, padding into the kitchen and returning with two more, having replaced his water glass. Clint hears the clink of a recycling bin and then the sound of glass crunching while he accepts a bottle from Bruce, who stretches out along the couch, one leg crooked, and it’s long enough that he’s still not touching Clint. ‘Tony had to buy Steve sized couches when he moved in,’ Bruce says, when Clint comments on the size of them ‘he kept falling asleep on them and waking up with a crick in his neck.’

Clint nods, taking a pull of his beer and resolving to make it his last. He’s always been a lightweight, since he was a scrawny fifteen year old acrobat that weighed a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet. Apparently his tolerance level didn’t increase with his size, and he will forever be bitter about that, since he spent most of his time with Natasha, who was Russian and Coulson [eventually he’s going to be able to refer to him without flinching; Bruce is eying him like Clint’s just poured his beer everywhere] wouldn’t ever indulge him in a drinking contest, and later, with Stark, who he’s pretty sure has a bionic liver, and Rogers, super soldier, who outdrank Natasha and really, that was hilarious, but Clint’s forever stuck as the lightweight of the group, so he just goes with it now. He picks at his label again and shifts round so he mirrors Bruce’s position, the sole of one of his feet pressed against the side of his knee, back against the arm of the chair, watching Bruce wrap his lips around the neck of the bottle and tilt his head back. Clint watches him swallow, and flushes, without really knowing why.

Bruce clears his throat, and Clint blinks, realising he was staring, turns a deeper red. He opens his mouth to apologise, but before he’s even registered the moment, Bruce’s tongue is in his mouth, hand on the side of his face, knee between his thighs and Clint drops his beer. He mumbles a curse, and Bruce draws back, licking his bottom lip and looking like he’s going to bolt, depending on Clint’s next move.

‘It’s been a really really long time since someone kissed me like that,’ Clint says, embarrassingly breathless.

‘So, uh,’ Bruce says, eyes darting around. Clint curls the hand previously holding his beer into the collar of his shirt and pulls him back down. It’s uncoordinated and messy, and they clack teeth and bite each other, but it’s exactly what Clint needs, and he licks the salt and rust taste of blood from Bruce’s mouth until all he can taste is the goulash and a faint hint of the beer he’d barely touched. Clint’s hands flutter, skimming up and down Bruce’s back until his shirt rides up, and his fingertips dip below the waistband of his underwear. Bruce is pushing at the hem of Clint’s shirt, shoving his hand underneath it and running a palm up his stomach until his thump catches one of Clint’s nipples and his breath catches in his throat. He can feel Bruce smile into his mouth before nipping at his lower lip and pulling back to sit on his heels. His cheeks are flushed and his pupils are blown, and as attractive as he looked before, he looks debauched now, and Clint wants to muss his hair and kiss bruises into his skin that are high enough up his neck they can’t be hidden by collared shirts. He whines when Bruce climbs off him and sways slightly, like blood is rushing to his head, but Bruce just pulls him up too and curves an arm around his waist, kissing him again before sucking at the place in his neck where his pulse jumps and murmuring into the skin there. ‘We can stay here, or we can go to my room, but either way, I’m going to be on my knees blowing you. Your choice.’ Clint’s brain goes offline, and he sputters, and by the time it reboots, he’s in Bruce’s room, knees hitting the bed and he falls backwards, spreading his legs as Bruce slots between them, bracing himself above Clint with one hand and undoing Clint’s jeans with the other before sinking to his knees and tugging them off and throwing them into a corner of the room. Clint’s recovered enough to prop himself up on his elbows, but then Bruce’s hands are in his underwear, and his head drops back as his hips arch off the bed and he makes an embarrassing strangled sound that might be Bruce’s name. Bruce drags a hand along Clint’s dick once, twice before pulling it out and running the flat of his tongue over the head, almost experimentally, and _fuck_. Clint’s elbows give out and his back hits the bed again as his toes curl, and there’s a litany of words tumbling out of his mouth, mostly _fuck_ and _Bruce_ and _oh god_ in various combinations and patterns, until Bruce hollows his cheeks and takes all of Clint in his mouth, and Clint’s vision goes a little white at the edges and his voice cracks, high pitched and needy. His hands are fisted in the sheet underneath him, and he’s fucking mewling now, beyond words, just sounds and he hopes this place has thick walls, and if Rogers overheard [he is not thinking about Captain America while he gets a blowjob, he just _isn’t_ ] his delicate 1940’s sensibilities would be so very offended Clint would never be able to look him in the eye again. Or, look him in the chin, since Rogers is a good four inches taller than him, at least. Bruce is laughing at him, humming around his dick and the vibrations go right through him, something tightening low in his stomach, and he makes a final strangled sound before he’s coming, eyes rolling back in his head and the world blurs. His mouth moves soundlessly for a few seconds, and then he goes boneless. Bruce pulls off and rubs at the white smudge on the corner of his mouth and smiles lopsidedly.

‘Jesus _Christ_ , Banner,’ Clint sighs, trying to find the motivation to sit up, or move in any way. He makes a half-hearted attempt, but Bruce pushes him back down and cleans him up before lying on the bed next to him. Clint rolls onto his side and fumbles at Bruce’s belt, but he pushes him away, lying on his back and taking deep breaths, with his eyes shut.

‘Just, just give me a few minutes,’ he says, his voice deeper than normal, and Clint thought it was the light in the room, but there’s a greenish tint to Bruce’s skin, and Clint shivers suddenly, involuntarily. They sit in silence, just the steady rise and fall of Bruce’s breathing until his eyes slide open, and they’re normal, soft and brown and calm. His lopsided smiled is back as he looks up at Clint. ‘Hi.’

‘You back with me?’ Clint asks, soft and hunched over.

‘Yeah. Sorry. If my heart rate gets over two hundred, the other guy makes an appearance. And a mess.’

‘I’ll remember that.’ Clint says, before rolling off the bed and finding his jeans.

 He’s buttoning them and trying to flatten the back of his hair when Bruce curls around him, dropping a kiss onto the back of his neck and hooking fingers into belt loops. ‘Are you leaving?’ he says into Clint’s shoulder. ‘Why?’

‘I, uh,’ Clint stutters. ‘Aren’t you done with me?’

Bruce huffs laughter into his skin, and pulls him backwards, undoing his jeans and pushing them down again as they fall onto the bed. He unbuttons his own pants and pulls his shirt over his head and Clint is momentarily distracted by tracking across Bruce’s narrow chest and flat stomach, dusted with curls of dark hair disappearing into the waistband of his boxers. He tugs at Clint’s t-shirt, before pushing him back to lie against the pillows, and Bruce curls around him, resting his head on Clint’s chest and tangling their legs together. ‘Stay,’ he mumbles, and Clint smiles, eyes sliding shut. Post orgasm tiredness has settled into his bones, and for now, he’s happy to listen to Bruce’s shallow breathing as he shifts in the bed and snuffles into Clint’s skin.

There are worse places to be, after all.


End file.
